Comelec’s vote-counting machines, hackable, ‘expert’ claims

Commission on Elections spokesman James Jimenez demonstrates how the vote-counting machine (VCM) works, during a congressional hearing on poll automation, Tuesday. Senator Koko Pimentel urged the Comelec to provided printed receipts to allow voters to check if their votes were properly scanned.(MNS photo)

MANILA (Mabuhay) – A man claiming to be an automated elections expert said the vote-counting machines (VCM) that will be used by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) in the May elections are vulnerable to hacking and manipulation.

Dr. Jin Battung, who claims having ties with the Israeli founders of instant messaging app Viber, said the claims that the VCM’s source code was “unhackable” meant nothing as it was the machine’s algorithms that the Comelec should be concerned with.

Despite Comelec making it clear that the VCMs to be used for the 2016 polls are different from PCOS, Battung feared that VCMs may still have the same glitches as the 82,000 PCOS machines bought by the government in the 2010 elections.

The IT expert said the PCOS refused to read the names of some candidates in the previous elections, proving they had memory cards that could be used to rig the elections.

“You recognize some of the names and one of the name was not recognized, it only shows that PCOS machine has a memory,” Battung said.

He continued, “How many candidates in the national elections on vice and president has the letter M?… If the PCOS really carries a memory, I can transverse the candidates with M or the candidates with B from the president up to the senator and transfer it to the vote of the higher up.”

Battung then name-dropped two candidates in explaining his claims on the alleged vote swapping.

“When the PCOS recognize M, the PCOS can either put all the M on top. And what is that M on top? If the PCOS will leave some M in the senators, he could transverse it into the upper level and it will be read as M- Mar or Mar Roxas, whatever, and the other one will be Marcos. Pwede nilang i-tamper. Binay, Miriam also,” Battung alleged.

Meanwhile, Sen. Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III said that the 2019 elections don’t need to use the leased PCOS from Smartmatic, though he argued that these matters could be settled by the next administration.

Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez said on Balitanghali on Monday that PCOS machines will be used again in the 2019 elections.

Voter verification needed

Pimentel accused the Comelec of pre-empting calls to activate either the Voter Verification Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT), or the receipt printed after casting vote, or the on-screen verification functions of the VCMs.

“Ang problema, tinali na ng Comelec ang mga kamay nila when it comes to the paper receipt because they did not order the quantity of paper needed to give the receipt… There is still the screen. Ang screen prinogram nila na 30 seconds automatically maga-out na,” he said.

Jimenez announced earlier that an additional seven hours may be needed to account for the additional 13 seconds needed to print receipts, which could be used in vote-buying or disrupting elections in precincts.

Should Comelec revert voting times back to 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. instead of its jumped up closing time of 5 p.m., the PDP-Laban president says the voting body could afford to give voters enough time for verification.